


Omnium rerum principia parva sunt

by snowbryneich



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:01:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9390140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbryneich/pseuds/snowbryneich
Summary: Omnium rerum principia parva sunt. Everything has small beginnings - just a place to post drabbles and tumblr prompt fics :)





	1. Haunting - Norribeth

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt ❛ It’s haunting, that hold that you have over me. ❜ (tortuga era norribeth?) from @thetalesofemily

_‘It’s haunting, that hold that you have over me.’_

James’ words had in return haunted Elizabeth – the whole time on the Pearl. He had had much to say after she dragged him out of the pigswill. None of which he would have said sober. It had almost been more strange to see him so vulnerable than it had to see him covered in filth and drunk.

He had not seemed so upset when the engagement had been broken. Though that was unfair, it had been badly done and so public – she cannot hold it against him that he had saved face. And he had never been one to wear his emotions on his sleeve. If she had not found him in the pigswill she might have still be able to delude herself, he had only wanted a smart match.

She did not mean to haunt him or have a hold over him. No more than she had meant to hurt him. And now she had dragged him into piracy.

He had said as much the night they boarded the Pearl. “Why are you coming James?” she had asked. “I can get you a bed in an Inn for tonight,” she assumed he had been sleeping rough from the state of him, “and there are merchant ships that dock here – you do not want to serve on the Black Pearl.” James had stopped – looked more offended than she had never seen and then vomited over the side while Elizabeth averted her eyes and regretted that nowhere in Tortuga served coffee at this hour.

“I do not need your charity,” he had told her coldly. “I have my own reasons for boarding the Pearl.”

“To kill Jack?” she said exasperated. “James the crew would turn on you in an instant.”

“Which is my concern,” he said. “Not yours. And if I go home they will hang me. At least here there is a chance to prevent whatever scheme Sparrow has in mind for you. I do not think he is in the usual business of reuniting lost loves.”

Elizabeth had retreated in a huff at that – but later she could admit to herself if no-one else that it was a little reassuring to know James was on her side.


	2. Protection - Norribeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me a sentence and I'll write the next five from sleepylotus who gave me “She wanted to protect him. An absurd impulse, perhaps, for a slip of a girl of barely nineteen in regards to a man who commanded three of His Majesty’s finest warships in the Caribbean, over a 1000 men at his disposal, and 172 guns–but there it was. There was something fragile about James Norrington. Something she suspected only she saw.”

She wanted to protect him. An absurd impulse, perhaps, for a slip of a girl of barely nineteen in regards to a man who commanded three of His Majesty’s finest warships in the Caribbean, over a 1000 men at his disposal, and 172 guns–but there it was. There was something fragile about James Norrington. Something she suspected only she saw.

Of course, it would have been so much more useful if she had seen it before she married him, before the wedding and the fuss and her own sulking resentment that all the world deemed her fit for was to be someone’s wife and a producer of children.

Or even before he had noticed just how much she hated her life – that would have done.

He had retreated utterly in face of her unhappiness, disdained her bed and her company and shuttered his own disappointment away from her in reassurances that he would not impose on her any longer.

She missed him every day now, even when they were in the same house, the same room, it was like he was a world away and now that she saw him truly, she did not like the distance at all.

So, what she had to do now was make him see that she did see him, that she wanted him – if he knew that she knew he would forgive her for taking so long to love him.


	3. Pandora - Sparrabeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five sentence meme - Sparrabeth “Are ye sure you want to be opening this Pandora’s box, Missy?” (again from sleepylotus :)

“Are ye sure you want to be opening this Pandora’s box, Missy?”

Elizabeth was not sure exactly what she had expected when she had come to Jack’s cabin in little more than her shift to attempt to seduce him, of course when she was younger and idealistic she had thought seduction might involve the invocation of myths, she’d just always pictured a more flattering comparison than the releaser of all ills into the world.

“I rather liked the version where Pandora releases hope rather than keeps it locked up,” Elizabeth told Jack inching just a step closer, “what good is anything doing anyone locked up in a box?”

Jack looked nonplussed, he had given her one warning and now it appeared he was lost for words – Elizabeth was sure that would be all the restraint he could manage, “I don’t want to hurt ye, Lizzy,” Jack said sounding oddly boyish.

“So, don’t,” she said and kissed him shivering against him as he responded plundering her mouth and abandoning whatever resolve he had attempted to conjure. 

Jack Sparrow was a good man but Elizabeth was sick of being a good girl and she meant to make him see that.


	4. Liar - Sparrabeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Sparrabeth…“my beautiful liar, why are you crying?” from PrincessPenelopeNerfHerder

It was not as if they were always in Shipwreck Cove together, Jack reasoned, the second time the _Empress_ sailed the day the _Black Pearl_ docked without him so much as seeing Lizzy nor receiving any word from her. Elizabeth returned more often - being King and all. And to visit her whelp of course – who was a reasonable lad for the most part now he had grown out of soiling himself and monopolising his mother’s breasts. In fact, he was fun. Jack visited him even when Elizabeth wasn’t there and had taken to wandering the city with the youngest Turner sitting on his shoulders - he was his mother’s son and always up for a tale – he liked ones of his mum best but Jack couldn’t fault him for that. 

Jack tended to roam further afield, his crew were more likely to scatter and require more persuasion than the one she had inherited from Sao Feng. He never came back as often. He had shared Lizzy’s bed since her before her son was born but they had never made any formal arrangement. Elizabeth had made joking references to ships that pass in the night on more than one occasion that were not entirely wrong. 

 

But he perched himself on the highest point of the town of Shipwreck – a crow’s nest that swayed precariously in the breeze and watched the Chinese junk battle the tide out of Shipwreck Cove against all sense or reason, Jack knew something was wrong. 

It was not as if he had not offended women before. It was not as if he had not offended _Lizzy_ before. But he had always mostly known what he had done. And Lizzy had certainly been willing to tell him explicitly how he had outraged those delicate sensibilities of hers that could rear their head at the most inopportune times. She had never just avoided him before. 

It was a month or so later Jack did catch her – the _Pearl_ had sailed into Shipwreck Cove just in time to avoid a storm and the _Empress_ was already there – and clearly would be going nowhere. 

 

Elizabeth kept her son in rooms above the Brethren court – in the heart of the pirate city, where it was most defensible – if such a thing could be said about anywhere in Shipwreck Cove. And if the court was not in session it was where she would most likely be found. 

Elizabeth was occupied with putting the boy to bed when he slipped into her quarters and the nurse took one look at him barely stammered where the pirate king was and then fled. An ill omen to start with. 

“Oh, it’s you,” Elizabeth said when she came out of the cabin. Her face was tear stained and her eyes red and now he would be in trouble for catching her in a moment of weakness. She had always hated that. 

“Luv if you’re expecting me to know what I’ve done I’ll have to disappoint,” Jack told her – “You’ve avoided me for months.” 

“Nothing.” She told him. “You’ve done nothing.” 

Doing nothing had gotten Jack in trouble before. But it was clear in this case, Elizabeth didn’t mean it. 

 

“Well then Lizzy, my beautiful liar, why are you crying?“ Jack tried to tug her close. There were other ways to be persuasive. 

“Don’t,” she said with such hurt in her voice that Jack began to wonder if this was not something he could sweet talk out of her. And then he noticed. There was slightly more of her than last time had seen her and he let go of her to stare at the slight swell of her belly. 

Ah. Right then. An answer. 

“You need not worry,” Elizabeth told him stiffly. “I had one babe alone. I will be fine with this one too. I don’t want anything from you.” 

 

Jack did not know exactly why he was being rejected as a father without so much as a by your leave. And outrage at this pushed down the swelling panic that his coming fatherhood had generated. 

He had spent most of her first pregnancy by her side what with his scurvy former first mate Barbossa having taken his ship at the time.  “You did not have Billy alone.” He objected. “You nearly had my hand off.” She had screamed the place down and no amount of rum had washed that memory from Jack’s subconscious. Or the blood. Or the days after she had laid unconscious while a wet nurse Gibbs had found had tended the baby. 

“Stop calling him that,” Elizabeth said testily. “His name is William,” she paused. “I know you’ve always been a very fond uncle. But you have no desire to be a father Jack.” 

 

“Don’t I,” Jack said. He had not given the matter a great deal of thought but he was not about to be _told_ what he wanted. 

“You told the entire tavern so,” she said. “You know you did – on William’s birthday. Dandling him on your knee and giving him rum when you thought I wasn’t looking. Gibb’s was teasing you saying you’d want one of your own. You said you’d been traumatised – and that I had given you scars. You said you’d never go through it again.” 

Jack had said it in a much more entertaining fashion than that, he was sure. He only vaguely remembered the party – he had been drunk before it began and it had been his idea to have party for a four year old in the tavern which had infuriated Elizabeth and delighted young William. Many of Jack’s ideas had this result. And it had been watered rum. No harm in starting the lad early was there.

 

“I never thought you would want to do it again,” he said. “In fact.” Jack brightened a bit as he found an argument. “If we are basing this on what was said, you vowed solemnly that William would be an only child before he was even born. And that if I – or any man ever thought about getting you pregnant again you’d rip off his cock and feed it to him.” 

“That was four years ago,” she said. “Not _two_ months ago, not the night I was going to tell,” Elizabeth cut herself off but Jack looked at her belly and considered his scant knowledge of the inner workings of a female personage such as Elizabeth (the outer workings he was practically an expert on of course,) and realised just what she had been planning to tell him. 

 

“Ah.” Jack said. “Lizzy luv, I didn’t know. And I never considered it to be honest. But it’s for the best isn’t it?”

“For the best,” Elizabeth said incredulous. 

“I seem to recall pregnancy making you rather short tempered.” Jack explained as if this was entirely obvious. “So it’s for the best I set you off now. Before your temper gets any worse. I’m not going anywhere Lizzy. ” He pulled her close and felt the brief moment of resistance, before she let him hold her a shiver of relief flowing through her. 

“I don’t know,” she said loftily. “You’ve got five months to top this, I could still make good on my threat. Bad temper indeed.” 


	5. Sanguine - norribeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norribeth modern vampire au,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt from Sleepylotus from the angel prompr meme "Ah. Say no more. Evil’s still afoot. And I’m almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel that I like so much.” and modern au. So it's a modern vampire au, of course.

James had not meant to interfere. He had told himself repeatedly he wouldn’t. He’d been warned numerous times about the rules vampire society was bound by and if he drew much more ire on himself from the elders he would have to move and establish a new identity – an ever more complicated process as time went on after a mere ten years since his last change. But after being forced to meet a contact in one of the dreadful pits of noise that passed for an evening’s entertainment in this wretched ceremony he had done it again.

He’d watched a woman so drunk she could barely stand being led out of the appalling club by one of his own kind and gone out to prevent a murder. It was not as if there were ever any challenge in the fights. Most vampires relied on their superior strength when attacking humans. No-one bothered with technique anymore. And for some reason, once they realised he was a vampire as well they never expected the stake. James had spent hundreds of years taking advantage of that. He had always been a hunter and if the transition to this state of being had not been easy he had come to see vampires as very like pirates. Selfish and vicious and dissolute. It was why it had galled so much to end up as one – on both scores.

 

“I believe you’ve been warned about this,” a long-familiar voice said and James turned in the alley irritated, both by Elizabeth’s untimely appearance and her ability to sneak up on him despite his supernatural senses. She was immaculately dressed by current standards, her long hair loose and a dress that was no doubt highly fashionable. As much as James had gotten used to the looser morals and standards society operated in now he could not help but think of Elizabeth as half naked. He brushed the dust of the hapless victimiser of drunken women off his hands and looked in the direction of the woman he had saved rather than consider just how much of Elizabeth’s thighs he could see.

The drunken would be victim had, of course, run off without a word of thanks which while ungrateful was not an insensible action. “Do you think she will be alright?” he said. “She was extraordinarily drunk,”

“Was,” Elizabeth said pointedly. “It is a marvel what adrenalin can do. At least she is intoxicated enough no-one will believe her.” James took this to mean Elizabeth was still involved in some way in the wider vampire community and was concerned with keeping their secrets.

“Indeed,” he said. “Good night Miss Swann.” He stepped away from Elizabeth – he did not know why he kept running into her. The first time a century ago when the sight of her had blindsided him. For one foolish moment, he had thought she was still alive and been elated and then when he realised he was wrong it had sent him on a killing binge that he still lost sleep over. Then at least once or twice in each subsequent decade. It was almost as if she was doing it on purpose but seeing as they did naught but quarrel and she had not been that interested in him when he was alive he could not bring himself to voice it.

“You are being ridiculous James,” Elizabeth said.

“I will not be bound by rules that are without honour,” James said. “And that I did not sign up for by having my throat ripped out. I will do what I must and it is no business of yours.”

“I meant avoiding me,” Elizabeth said in a cool tone. “But say no more. Evil’s still afoot. And I’m almost out of that nancy-boy hair gel that I like so much. Go play the dark knight if you must. But your contact is still inside if you are still wanting to purchase some sustenance.”

 

James growled as he stalked past her, struggling to not bear his fangs at her, knowing even the instinct was ridiculous. Fifty years ago in Paris, he had made the mistake of confessing to Elizabeth that he hated he had been made a vampire in Tortuga, while in the least groomed state he had ever been in his life.  The bizarre nature of the process had seen him frozen in time with stubble and hair that would not be controlled no matter how he tried. Now she mocked his appearance every time he ran into her.

When he brushed past her, she whispered in his ear. “They steal that blood from hospitals you know – it’s still killing. Just in a different way.” Elizabeth, of course, was flush with fresh blood, he could smell it on her, but then she always was. If she had no qualms about being a pirate why after death would she hesitate to feed on innocent people?

“Animal blood doesn’t work,” James said and he had learned the hard way that not ingesting any blood – well that had turned out messily. Vampires turned feral without food and when guilt had driven James to that over a century ago, he had thought it was working until he woke up in London covered in blood beside a dead woman and after found he had spent the best part of a month murdering prostitutes – not that he remembered any of it. He had not tried it again since. He did not manage to avoid murder entirely – but he dealt less death than most of their kind. “Do you not feel any guilt?” he demanded suddenly and Elizabeth blinked.

“No,” she said. “I am just choosier about my food.” She tilted her head at the exit of the alley. “Do you think vampires are the only ones who prey on women. I am doing the gene pool a favour.”

 

And so James had foregone his contact and followed Elizabeth to another nightclub to let her prove that murder could be a good deed. The clubs were ubiquitous and they were filled with numerous young people on their way to alcohol poisoning or some other foolish end. But there seemed to be little sign of these men Elizabeth had deemed fit for death and when he was about to point out she was wrong he was accused of spoiling things.

“I cannot attract a date rapist with you looming over me like a rejected suitor or protective boyfriend,” she told him. “Go and dance or something.”

James glanced at the mass of sweating, heaving bodies writhing on the dance floor and set his jaw. He would never. “Or wait outside,” Elizabeth said seeing his face. “I promise I will prove my point to you before anyone dies.”

James told himself he should just leave. It had been foolish to get involved with her again. It seldom ended any better in this half-life than when they have been alive.

But when Elizabeth stumbled out of the club, twenty minutes later she was putting on a very convincing drunk act, clinging to the arm of a man who could be to James’ mind no more than twenty-five. It seemed a very young age to condemn a man to death. “I don’t think I feel well,” Elizabeth said. “My head is spinning. Can you get me a cab?”

“No cab, love,” her selected victim said. “You can come back to mine.”

“No,” Elizabeth said steadily. “I don’t think I want too. My head hurts.”

It surprised James how rapidly the man turned. He pushed Elizabeth up against the wall and told her to stop whinging. And then he had began to fumble at her dress. Whatever he might have done next to prove Elizabeth’s point was made irrelevant. James had ripped his throat out before he had even meant to move.

Elizabeth sighed pointedly - she no doubt would have been neater and wiped the spattered blood off her face. “I think you take my point?”

James nodded. Fury throbbing through him as well as hunger and the desire for her that had never abated no matter how many century’s past. “You might as well drink now,” she said sweetly. “I’ve fed already tonight. And once you aren’t starving – well I am sure we can make our own entertainment.”


	6. Ignis - norribeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Temeraire fusion in which James finds himself captaining a dragon

James could not understand it, his engagement with Elizabeth had only been settled before he had sailed and it had taken her a week to give him an agreement without overmuch enthusiasm. It had worried him dreadfully before he sailed and he had thought perhaps her father had pressured her into saying yes. That was the last thing he wanted. He had planned a long engagement to give her the opportunity to call off the arrangement if she wanted. Or so that he might have time to convince her of how he felt and it might encourage similar feelings. Their courtship had been overly formal thus far which had not helped matters.  But if she had accepted him so reluctantly before why would she not release him now when his prospects were so reduced.

Governor Swann would surely have not permitted the match if he had known this would happen but he has too much honour to publicly reject James after giving his permission.

“You should have more faith in me,” Elizabeth had scolded when he had tried once again to explain why they should not wed. “Unless you only wanted father’s influence with the Admiralty board. I know they have no say in who gets promoted in the Aerial corps.” James was entirely flabbergasted by this accusation and deep into his denial of such when he noticed her smile. She was teasing him.

“Elizabeth, I will not be able to give you the life I wanted to as an aviator. But I cannot expect the corps to give up a fire breather.” James’ duty was very clear and he did not want her to think it reflected on her that he could not give the dragon up.

“I do not want you to give up Amphitrite,” Elizabeth said. “I am more than content to be an aviator’s wife. Anyway you cannot withdraw. We are to be married and that’s that.” James spent a few days being cheered by her determination until he wondered if she might wish to be an aviator’s wife if only because she would see him much less than if he were still a naval officer.

If he could not convince Elizabeth to no longer accept him he had a similar challenge convincing Amphitrite of the necessity of his marrying. The dragon was extremely possessive. “What do you need a wife for anyway?” She had asked exhaling steam. She had covered over her clearing in Port Royal’s small covert with ash and heated stones and had taken to exhaling flame over any food which meant that there was a lingering smell of roast beef. “You are  _my_ captain.”

“Well I will not be Elizabeth’s Captain,” James said quietly. “I will be her husband and she will keep my home and eventually there will be children.” He had a vague notion the dragon would approve of that given the inheritance of Captaincy’s that happened in the corp.

“Oh,” said Amphitrite with a sudden understanding that gave James pause “Do you not have a breeding ground you could get an egg from? I heard that you do not need a wife for such. There are women who will do it for money and that seems much simpler.”

James closed his eyes for a brief moment and struggled. “From whom did you hear such?” he asked only for Amphitrite to become suddenly very interested in the burnt remnants of her dinner.

“Will you not at least meet her?” James asked instead. Elizabeth had asked half a dozen times to be introduced to the dragon and James was beginning to wonder if his change in career was considered a positive for reasons beyond it keeping him away from her much of the time.

“Alright,” Amphitrite said exhaling steam huffily. It did not bode well. And James was forced to suppress the shameful thought that perhaps the dragon could get through to Elizabeth when he could not.

 

It was not the case. Elizabeth was not deterred by the growing dragonet’s dislike of her. She had arrived for her first visit with an item of jewellery for the dragon. Her second visit she had produced a sketch of Amphitrite which while it had only produced begrudging thanks at the time had Amphitrite admiring it vainly all night once Elizabeth had left.

Then Elizabeth had produced a sketch of James – apparently on request and had mentioned casually that she had known James for years if Amphitrite wished to hear tales of his early career. James was fairly certain that at that stage the battle was lost.

It surprised him then how long Elizabeth spent getting her fine dresses dusty with ash and speaking in quiet tones to the engrossed dragon. Perhaps they had found another topic of conversation. But every time he arrived to tell Elizabeth her father’s carriage was here to collect her, the snatches of conversation he could hear were certainly about him.

One day as he walked Elizabeth to the carriage, she stopped. “I am afraid we will have to get married from the King’s House,” she said. “I have promised Amphitrite she may attend and she just might fit in the gardens. But there is no way she’ll be allowed near the church.”

James could not even respond at first – he could only picture her father’s reaction. “Don’t worry,” Elizabeth reassured. “I will deal with Father.” James would have worried over it more if not for the fact that Amphitrite was waiting for him with some detailed queries about how long he and Elizabeth would be in producing an egg for her.


	7. Loss - norribeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5 sentence fic prompt - I thought I lost you

“I thought I lost you.”

Elizabeth blinked up at her first mate, this made the cabin spin a little and she still felt fevered but it must have broken given the relief on James’ face – she had never seen him show so much emotion – it even looked like he’d been crying?

Her incredulousness must have shown as he faltered a little. “Not that you are mine to lose,” he said, “we were all very concerned for your health.”

Elizabeth doubted that was true of all her crew and she grasped for James’ hand, every muscle aching at the movement. “I think I can allow you to have some claim on me,” she said hoping he took her meaning, “I appreciate the concern.”


	8. Anticipation - sparrabeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First line prompt: "And exactly how did you anticipate this going?"

“And exactly how did you anticipate this going?“

Elizabeth blinked at Jack, the question surprised her and she stretched a little before she curled into him, she did not think her contemplation would be noticed – not when they were still naked and there so many other distractions on offer.

“It went wonderfully,” she assured him. “But I thought I would feel differently after.”

This earned her an arched eyebrow and she blushed a little as she explained. “I thought I would feel,” she considered before she offered, “satisfied.”

It was the wrong thing to say and Jack’s offended expression made her laugh as she pressed him down into the bunk with a kiss. “I don’t mean like that. I meant.” She paused, struggling for the right way to phrase her dilemma. “It feels like having a delicious meal after a week of ship’s biscuit,” she said. “But all it really does is make you realise how  _hungry_  you are.”

Jack pulled her down into the pillows with. “Ah,” he said archly, his dark eyes gleaming wickedly in a way that only made Elizabeth tingle with anticipation. “A lady of  _appetites_. I shall do my very best to be obliging.”


	9. Remedy Against Sin - James POV - norribeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of my fic A remedy against sin from James POV (again from a tumblr prompt)

James had supposed it would go poorly from the off. He was under no illusions over the circumstances of Elizabeth’s acceptance of his proposal. Yet he had not really considered how poorly. He could never have anticipated that she would come so close to refusing him in church. To vanishing during the reception to weep. 

  
He had expected a rather distant marriage based on their wedding day. That he could have coped with as miserable as it was as a notion. But Elizabeth wanted distance from him in every way but one and that made it so much worse. Of course, her interest in sharing his bed was not because of any actual interest in him, she had made that plain even as she insisted on coming to him on the wedding night. But James had been determined to show her some pleasure and then when she had come back to his bed – again and again when he had said she did not need to. That was not duty. James had gone along with it at first – a combination of a lack of self-control on his part (he had never wanted any woman the way he wanted his wife for all it was only a sliver of what he felt for and he had maintained for some time a futile hope that perhaps a greater connection could be forged from the physicality. It had eventually become been clear that was a pipe dream - it had only been that every time they lay together there had been a moment afterwards. One when he saw more in Elizabeth’s face than desire for pleasure sometimes only for a fraction of a second or a heart beat where she rested in his arms and seemed to want more from him. But only ever a heart beat before she excused herself and retreated and when she had chosen to berate him mid coitus for having lovers before her James had decided enough was enough.   
  


Elizabeth had of course, taken that badly and it had taken some time for her seduction attempts to cease.   
  


None of that had prepared him for her bold statement when he rejected her latest seduction attempt. That she thought she had no use to him but to warm his bed. That she assumed he wanted a social match and that her disgrace made her fit for nothing but satisfying his lusts.   
  


 

He had still been reeling from the revelation that was what she thought of him when she had made it clear why. That men talked about her in such a manner and she had not felt it worth commenting on or bringing to him. He had lost his head entirely and demanded to know exactly who and what they had said. He laid hands on her when she clearly would have fled otherwise and had not listened to her protests or her pretence to not know the names of the men who had insulted her. It had only been when repeating the insults and innuendos and humiliating comments that she had succumbed to tears and made him realise the level of her upset. By that point she had, of course not wanted his comfort and she physically pushed him away when he tried to draw her into his arms. It was only then he had realised how inappropriate he had been. As the insults were not enough now he had frightened her.

James knew he should apologise for that night, but the words stuck in his throat. If she thought so little of him, the night probably made very little difference to her opinion. He could not forget what she is said. That she was of little use but to warm his bed. That was the sort of man she thought he was. There was no sense in apologising if that was the regard she held him in. Instead he spent his time dealing with the insults she had been dealt.  
  


He called out three men in short succession for their words about Elizabeth enlisting Theo Groves as his second. Though he had had words with his old friend who had revealed he had heard much of the talk and not thought to say anything to James. “Not all of it,” the lieutenant had protested. “Most officers have enough sense to hold their tongue in front of me – it’s the men I’ve heard, and I’ve dealt with them.” Theo had had four men flogged for insolence without so much as mentioning it to his commanding officer in case James had considered it an abuse of power. James could not regret it – not with the memory of Elizabeth haltingly relaying the insults she had suffered.  
  


But as good a friend as Theo was, a reliable second in the duels that followed and happy to be outraged on Elizabeth’s behalf. He was also far too inclined to offer marriage advice for a bachelor. James had occupied himself with defending his wife’s reputation and left Elizabeth to her own devices. Theo mocked him soundly for this. “You haven’t even told her what you are doing,” he pointed out. “She may think you’re ignoring her because you think her a disgrace.”   
“She does not,” James said. He was almost sure of that – she had told him about the apologies she had received and made no other overtures. He had made it clear he would not permit such talk and she had at least been pleased by that – grateful even though gratitude was hardly warranted in such circumstances which he has made clear.   
  


But Theo would not drop the subject even when ordered and James nearly lost his temper the next time the lieutenant brought Elizabeth up only to end up chagrined when Theo informed him. “I only thought you might want to know your wife was seen running through town as if chased,” he said. “No pursuer was seen but it seems your dawn appointments have not yet put everyone off.”   
James mustered up a begrudging apology and quit the room before Theo could crow any more. He nearly ran home himself. He was sure he had made it quite clear that he would defend Elizabeth – who would be foolish enough to threaten her now.

 

When he got home to find her abandoned blood-stained shoes in the hall, his worry quite undid his grudge at her opinion and he nearly barged in her room unasked before he recalled he was not welcome. “Elizabeth? May I come in?” he asked.  She had flung herself on the bed and looked so miserable his heart lurched and when she granted him entrance he went to her side at once unable to stop himself from trying to offer her comfort – no matter how little she wanted it.


End file.
